A unique characteristic of a product or brand identified by the marketer as the one on which to base a promotional campaign; often used in a product differentiation approach to promotion. A USP is a ‘Unique Selling Proposition,’ or a ‘Unique Selling Point.’ In other words, it’s the reason why someone should buy from you, and not from another vendor in the same space with a similar product. Why use Slack and not Facebook at work? Why buy pizza from Papa John’s and not Pizza Hut? How Does a USP Work? Some businesses are the only one in their field....

]]>http://blog.crazyegg.com/glossary/what-is-a-usp/feed/0Learn From the Best: What Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz Can Teach us About Marketinghttp://blog.crazyegg.com/2016/11/23/adams-and-leibovitz-on-marketing/
http://blog.crazyegg.com/2016/11/23/adams-and-leibovitz-on-marketing/#commentsWed, 23 Nov 2016 19:43:38 +0000http://blog.crazyegg.com/?p=24447

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This phrase has been drilled into our heads since we were kids — what significance does it have in our everyday lives as marketing and advertising professionals? A whole lot. Photographs evoke emotions from the viewer, and that is exactly what we want to invoke when appealing to a target audience. The best photographers — Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz and Steve McCurry — can teach us about marketing and advertising, through the universal theme of evoking emotion, as well as how to appeal to the human brain, and the human eye. Why Imagery...

]]>http://blog.crazyegg.com/2016/11/23/adams-and-leibovitz-on-marketing/feed/1How to Create a Company Culture As Enticing As Googlehttp://blog.crazyegg.com/2016/11/15/culture-enticing-as-google/
http://blog.crazyegg.com/2016/11/15/culture-enticing-as-google/#commentsTue, 15 Nov 2016 15:11:13 +0000http://blog.crazyegg.com/?p=24232

It’s not just a word that applies to different countries and ethnicities. Yet, this is how we commonly think about culture, as some sort of invisible style of thinking that permeates a specific group of people. While a company may not speak a different language or have different styles of dress and food to exhibit its own specific culture, it is nonetheless always incubating a style of thinking that can help it achieve its goals easily. If ignored, however, it may cause major problems down the road. Culture is that invisible guiding force that influences behavior, even when the supervisor...

If you’re managing a small business, odds are, you’re going it alone. I don’t mean you’re isolated or cut off. That isn’t a dig at your interpersonal skills. What I mean is, you’re probably a one-person marketing department. After all, that’s why you’re here: to hone your chops. At first glance, this makes a lot of sense. No one knows your business like you do, and consultants — especially top-tier consultants — demand retainers to the tune of several thousands of dollars per month, which you simply can’t afford. The problem is that marketing for startups and other SMBs isn’t...

Was there ever a time that you felt compelled to raise prices, but you just couldn’t because you were afraid your customers wouldn’t like it? Perhaps you felt that if you were to raise your prices, your customers would leave you for your competitors, which, if bad enough, might cause you to go out of business altogether. In some cases, raising prices can have a detrimental effect with customers, but for many businesses, raising prices is the only way to continue making a profit. If your business operates in a super-competitive market with low profit margins and larger players lock...

Paul Smith had his work cut out for him. The associate director of Proctor Gamble’s market research department had just 20 minutes to make a successful pitch to upper management. He needed to secure additional funding for new research techniques. To that end, Smith spent the last three weeks fine-tuning his speech and perfecting his PowerPoint presentation. He couldn’t have done a better job at preparation. On the day of the meeting, company CEO A.G. Lafley entered the room, greeted everybody, and sat down to hear Smith’s speech. But Lafley didn’t look once at the screen displaying Smith’s PowerPoint slides....

How do you feel about offering discounts to your customers? Most marketers I know have an opinion on this. Some hate it. Some love it. Discounts, loyalty offers, and other similar pricing strategies may seem like they would hurt your bottom line, but they’re a common business practice. It makes good sense. A well-planned sale has the ability to move inventory, draw new customers, and achieve sales targets, particularly during slow seasons. People who are opposed to discounts have their reasons. Before you implement any special offers and cut prices by half in the hopes of driving sales, you first...

Did you know that 55 percent of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a website? Regardless of your industry, product, service, etc., you’re dealing with an extremely small window of time before your visitors bolt. First impressions are huge, and studies have shown that the first 10 seconds are crucial for your visitors’ decision to stay or go. This graph from Nielsen Norman Group illustrates this well. So what can you do to ensure that you make a positive impression and get the maximum percentage of visitors to hang around and check out your content? It starts by answering...

Working in a competitive, oversaturated industry is not easy. There are dozens of similar companies, each and every one fighting for the same customers. If you are working in an industry like that, how do you survive? Undercutting the competition on prices is not sustainable. Sooner or later the margins will become so small that you will start losing money. You can start developing a new feature or improve what you already offer, but that takes a lot of time and resources. However, there are some other ways you can grab the attention of potential customers. You can add value...

Just how effective is online marketing at converting people from free to paid users of a particular tool? And is marketing the only thing that matters? I’m the first to admit I’m a hard sell when it comes to paying for tools, even the ones I love. That’s probably why it took almost five years for me to start paying for social media sharing tool Buffer, even though I loved it from the first use. Here’s how it happened. First Contact with Buffer First, a little background. I’ve always liked trying out new web tools and even used to review...